The WORN ArchiveMedia Release -- Drawn & Quarterly has acquired world rights to The WORN Archive: A Fashion Journal about the Art, Ideas, and History of What We Wear edited by WORN Editor-In-Chief Serah-Marie McMahon, it was announced today by Peggy Burns, Associate Publisher of Drawn & Quarterly. In-house editor is D+Q Managing Editor, Tracy Hurren.

To be released in Spring 2014 and collected from sixteen issues published over the past eight years by the Toronto-based magazine, The WORN Archive is a manifesto on why fashion and clothing matter. With its prescient, intelligent articles penned by a host of unique contributors (academics, writers, curators, and artists), WORN strives to address diverse issues like gender, identity, and culture with openness and honesty. WORN asserts that fashion is art, history, ideas, and most of all fun, presenting style as a personal experience that need not align with the fashion industry. The WORN Archive will have an introduction by noted fashion historian Valerie Steele.

"Along with selling the WORN Journal in our bookstore, we have been long-time personal fans of the publication—it's a fashion magazine for people who don't necessarily read fashion magazines, but are still interested in our visual culture," states Peggy Burns. "As well, Serah-Marie's story is remarkably similar to Chris Oliveros. A young Montrealer with a particular obsession realizes there's nothing quite like it in the marketplace, and undeterred, sets out to bring their crazy idea to life."

Serah-Marie McMahon
"I could not be happier to be partnering with Drawn & Quarterly on this project," says Serah-Marie McMahon. "They really understand that WORN expresses ideas on fashion not only through words, but also through photography, illustration, and design. The WORN Archive is as much a re-imagining of WORN's first years as it is a recollection. The first thing I did when I started WORN was to hang flyers in the neighbourhood that said, 'Do you love fashion but are frustrated by fashion magazines?' I hope that with The WORN Archive, we are showing people a view of fashion that isn't just about trends or commerce, and that fashion can be a celebration of who we are and what we wear."

Serah-Marie McMahon is Founder and Editor-in-Chief of WORN Fashion Journal and a freelance Creative Director and Writer. WORN has been nominated for a National Magazine Award for Best Cover of the Year; McMahon was named by Jane Pratt as a "Say: 100 Voices That Matter" in the style category and by NOW magazine as a Fashion Hero.

The WORN Archive (978-1-77046-150-5, 6.5 x 8.5", paperback, 496 pages, full colour, May, $29.95) is the first book to be collected from the magazine and will be supported by a full-scale North American promotional campaign. It will be distributed in the U.S. by Farrar, Straus & Giroux and in Canada by Raincoast Books. International rights are represented by Samantha Haywood of the Transatlantic Agency.

Praise for WORN:

"It's a mag for the fashion diehard who's fed up with the usual glossies, and for the feminist theorist who never imagined herself picking up a fashion magazine." —Ashley McAllister, Bitch

"In essence, [WORN is] the non-fashion fashion mag, and I can't recommend it highly enough."—Sadie Stein, Jezebel